Regardless of how Congressman Jim Renacci tries to spin it, it gets clearer by the day that his GOP tax bill is not aimed at helping Ohio’s working families. A new CNBC report shows that Wall Street investors have averaged a whopping $4.8 billion a day in stock buybacks in 2018, and JP Morgan projects there will be a record $800 billion by the year’s end. Instead of investing in economic development, job creation, or wage increases, Renacci’s tax bill is funneling money to the wealthy and well-connected while Ohio’s middle class is left behind.

Companies have been feverishly putting the savings they reaped from the tax breaks passed in December into their investors’ pockets this year.

Share buybacks in 2018 have averaged $4.8 billion a day, double the pace for the same period last year, according to market data firm TrimTabs. That comes following Congress’s move to slash the corporate tax rate from the highest-in-the-world 35 percent to 21 percent.

“The feverish buyback activity suggests companies plan to use a hefty chunk of the money they expect to save on taxes to buy back stock,” David Santschi, director of liquidity research at TrimTabs, said in his weekly report.

JP Morgan recently estimated that by year’s end, buybacks would reach a record $800 billion, a 51 percent increase over last year and in keeping with the trends TrimTabs has recorded for the year to date.